Manufacturing Software in the Cloud – Why It Pays To Have It?

Thinking about manufacturing software in the cloud, we recall Victorian England. A revolution in manufacturing took place that not only changed the landscape of trade at the time but laid the very foundations for our common industrial practices today.

The industrial revolution saw the birth of manufacturing processes, however primitive they may seem today, that have kept the same essence throughout the years; even with the advent of IT in manufacturing that many companies now use.

Until very recently though, it has only been the larger and better established manufacturers who have been able to easily afford the traditional IT solutions, like SAP, Epicor and Microsoft ERP.

Small and medium sized manufacturers have been at a distinct disadvantage, with only half being able to take the risk. However, there is no doubt that SMEs that do use digitally connected processes are more productive but to implement these processes can be very costly, especially in the case of MRP.

The recent publication of a range of predictions for the coming year by IDC (Worldwide Manufacturing report) shows a clear correlation between higher productivity and the adoption of a range of platforms for digitization and tools for handling processes, data generation and simulation, and cloud services.

Fourth on their list being especially interesting, stating that “by the end of 2018, 75% of manufacturers are [to undergo] an operating model transformation with digitally connected processes that improve[s] responsiveness and productivity by 15%.” This is a significant enough figure to excite and terrify SME owners and their management teams in equal measure.

Using cloud manufacturing software, instead of costly software that must be installed on servers or multiple machines throughout a company, is the savior for companies that are too large to keep things under control the old-fashioned way, and not quite large enough to be able to absorb the incredible high costs of platforms; the latter group often pushing their budgets to near breaking point in order to afford what to them is essential.

Luckily, the solutions are out there to enable small and medium sized businesses to go down the same road digitally as their larger industry rivals and enjoy the same kind of productivity benefits. MRPeasy Manufacturing Software has shared this aim since the very beginning. Cloud based MRP solutions for manufacturing SMEs has been a runaway success over the past couple of years, with clients across the globe who would otherwise have found implementing such process management systems a challenge, reaping the rewards of digitizing their manufacturing resource planning with this cloud based solution.

The IDC predictions all seem to follow the same basic trend: that manufacturing is on the cusp of a new revolution, but this time the emphasis will be on relinquishing the nuts and bolts of the processes that your business relies on, to companies providing cloud based tools.

Over the next three years the significant percentages of gain for SMEs who embrace this are astounding, and, “by the end of 2017, 50% of manufacturers will exploit the synergy of cloud, mobility and advanced analytics to facilitate innovative, integrated ways of working on the shop floor.”

It seems the days of letting someone else ‘crunch’ your data, then simply feeding you the rendered vital information are here. This not only lets you get on with what you do best, but potentially finds trends that you might otherwise have missed, to ensure a level of productivity that the Victorians would never have dreamt was possible.